Spotting and attracting UFOs

Tyler Cowen has started an entertaining blog meme about silly things people used to believe as a child, based on this site.

When I was really little I used to believe that two of my stuffed animals would come alive when my parents left the room. One was a big dog, the other a big bull. The bull would attack me mercilessly and the dog would protect me. My parents eventually had to give the evil bull away to a friend’s kid, whom I can only assume was also terrorized by it.

I also used to believe that aliens from outer space frequently visited our planet and that I had seen one of their ships once. I even started several UFO clubs in elementary school, enlisting my friends in the search.

Since I’m back home in Texas for the weekend, I dug into my old stuff to find a folder collecting papers from those clubs. The results are fun. According to the membership list, the goal of our club was “U.F.O. spotting and attracting.” If I had a plan at the time for the attracting part, I can’t remember it now. Perhaps attracting was a moot point, because I know that for weeks after watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind I was terrified of being abducted. Repelling UFOs should have been my real concern.

The folder includes a paper titled “Thing to watch out for that might not be UFO’s.” It’s an extensive list, republished here as a public service for others who think they may have seen a UFO. Might it have really been:

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Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, bartender, cocktail consultant, and magician in Portland, Oregon. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in the print or online editions of The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Times, Reason, The Oregonian, and other publications. His book on beer cocktails, Cocktails on Tap, is forthcoming from Stewart, Tabori, and Chang in 2015. [Photo by David L. Reamer.]